Returning to No Applause, Only More of the Same

Ah. That’s a bit troublesome.

As the two lovebirds left the apartment complex behind, Jay ducked in behind a bend. She crossed her arms, trying to withhold a grimace. God. Who would’ve thought that the monster had a girlie? Or that they could be so gross together without even kissing? Yuck.

Even worse, this hardly let her learn anything. Taking a few sneaky pictures had been a good way to bolster her growing folder of proof but it was still not enough by any means. In her very well-thought-out planning on how best to become a pseudo-paparazzi, she had never considered the fact that Wiedermann might actually get a bike. Maybe he sensed her following him? Either that or he had already planned on getting a bike and was just too distracted by his mate to even consider that someone might be behind him.

Either that or he’s already used to being followed, but Jay heavily doubted that. If the government has no way to contain him, why would the useless bastards even care about what he’s doing now?

Though, of course, there is always the possibility that he sensed her presence and chose to get a bike specifically to leave her in the dust. It’s possible. If he’s on a bike, Jay won’t have as many opportunities to take notes on his behaviour or take pictures of whatever he’s doing.

Jay gulped where she stood with her back to the building. Absently, she paged through the pictures she had already taken and the notes she’d written.

Somewhere in her heart, she almost wanted to alert that poor lady who thought she could be the beauty to his beast. However, any such notion was easily dispelled by the thought that if someone was stupid enough to get close to that obvious baddie, they probably deserved the just desserts of such a man’s actions. No, it was much better to just keep her eyes on the prize. If she went out of her way to warn the woman (Erica, according to the rudimentary lip-reading she did from a distance), it may have adverse effects on her plans in general.

It was best to leave that woman to her fate in favour of the world as a whole.

Jay stopped at a specific image. She broke out into a grin.

It showed the massive man lying on his ass beside an almost equally massive bike. Jay giggled to herself. She was damn lucky her target was the kind of man who couldn’t even bike properly.

Even more so, from what she had seen from previous stake-outs outside his room with a pair of binoculars, he seemed to have some form of morals, which was a good thing. This was because if he ever came across her or realized she was following him, he’d probably just forgive her. Heh. Though, she really didn’t want to stay around there for too long into the night since this was part of the route her mother took when stumbling home from “work”.

Jay shook her head, bringing herself back to reality. Right.

Now that she thought about it, she really ought to follow Wiedermann’s siblings(?) as well, just to make sure they didn’t pose a problem for her future plans. She already knew the female works as a police officer of some sort since she always came out wearing a uniform in the morning, but the male was a bit of a mystery. One of these days she’d do well to follow him as well.

Though, before that, she really needed to get hold of a bike. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of continuing to follow him. And there was only one person she could ask for that.

Jay groaned. If she headed home right now she might be able to catch her mother before she headed out for her night shift.

Putting away her things into her backpack, she left the apartment complex behind. With Wiedermann occupied with his mistress, Jay was pretty confident that he wouldn’t try to burn the country to the ground anytime soon. Probably. Assuming that poor woman didn’t decide to flip the lid at the last minute and slap him or something. It would be a strange end for such a date, but Jay was sure the man deserved it.

After a few minutes of walking, she found herself outside her front door. She tried the handle. The door slid open with a single creaking whistle, proving her mother was indeed home. Jay took a steadying breath. She stepped inside.

There were sounds coming from the kitchen. Jay put her backpack beside the couch and entered. She found her mother humming some small melody while gently frying vegetables, rice and what seemed to be some sort of fish all in one pan. Jay scrunched her nose at the smell. She hated fish. Her mother turned to her with a small, apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry dear, I know you’re not much for fish, but it’s important for your body,” she said sweetly, her eyebrows pinching together. “You’ll eat it, won’t you?”

Jay suppressed a sneer in the face of what she knew to be an opportunity. “What vegetables did you put in there?” If that thing had onions, not even Jay could put on a brave face and eat it.

Her mother tried to smile soothingly, giving a wink. “No onions guaranteed!” She turned back to the frying back, thumbing her lip. “Onions are also good for you. Especially young girls like you.”

“It makes my breath smell,” Jay said dryly. She eyed her mother. Wasn’t there something stupid and vaguely religious her mother should be saying right about now?

“God prefers His subjects to be strong, you know?” Ah. There it was. Her mother nodded deeply to herself, her eyes taking on a wistful lustre as she looked out the window. “After all, if even His angels are praying…”

“-Then he must be in a real pickle, yeah, I get it.” Jay huffed. Hearing her mother talk about her “angel” was almost worse than just talking to her normally.

Her mother pouted. “Now you’re making fun of me! I know you don’t think I saw anything, or that I’m delusional, but I really did see him!”

Noticing an opening in her defences, Jay shot out her demand. “You know, I’d probably believe you if you bought me a bike.”

Her mother stared at her. “What?”

Ah. Oops. Yeah, that was a bit too clumsy. Even her slave of a mother needed a little bit more finesse than that pathetic attempt. “I, well… I’m just saying that if I had a bike, I could get to school much faster. Then, I’d have more time left over for studying and I could get better grades.” And not end up like you.

Her mother frowned to herself, looking away. “A bike…” Her eyes turned to the kitchen around them. Every surface dirty and scrappy, every pot and pan second-hand. Food made from leftovers and dumpster-diving. Grease-infused wallpaper left from the 70’s. Then she looked back at her daughter, standing in front of her with dark eyes full of ill-hidden contempt. She smiled lightly. “Yeah, we can get you a bike. But you promise to study hard, okay? You’ve been out really late these past days… You won’t fall back in school, will you?”

Jay grinned, hoping she seemed appreciative when she in reality felt only joy at successfully conning her mother. Maybe she would have felt bad about it if the world wasn’t at stake. Or if her other wouldn’t use that money to buy drugs and alcohol if she didn’t use it for a bike.

“Thanks. I’d like it by tomorrow.” Jay swivelled on her heel to leave the kitchen.

“W-, wait!”

Turning to glance over her shoulder, Jay found her mother looking unusually desperate.

“You won’t eat together with me?” her mother said. “Like we used to?”

Jay turned back to the hallway. “I’ll eat in my room.”

Sitting down in front of her computer, Jay breathed a sigh of relief. Damn. That had been a close one. She was lucky her mother was a bit dull, otherwise she might have rejected her. If she did, Jay knew many ways of forcing her to bend to her will, but this was the simplest one.

She booted up her computer and headed to reddit. She had a few notifications of upvotes, comments and replies, so she clicked her way onto her last post. It was a relatively short text post; an update on a post she made a few days back when she first realized the extent of Wiedermann’s power. This update was pretty much just an explanation of how she’ll be working to dig further into the mystery of Wiedermann, though she obviously omitted his name and location. Wouldn’t want any other up-and-coming journalists getting any ideas. Even more importantly, when she finally releases her full and actual article, she doesn’t want the internet already knowing everything.

This was just a way for her to get advice and reactions and internet points while she worked.

Most of the comments on her update were encouraging her to continue seeking the truth at any cost, and to obviously share any updates with them. Which she would obviously do. A select few were telling her to let sleeping tigers lie, or that assuming she knew better than IOCRO might be a bit narcissistic of her. Of course, these sort of people were both downvoted into oblivion and told to have some faith. And so, Jay felt completely confident in ignoring them.

She checked the traction on her very first post. It seemed it finally hit a thousand upvotes overnight. She grinned to herself and prepared to write another post.

She glanced over at her camera. It was a pretty rudimentary thing, bought second-hand on a sale.

Should she share a picture or two of him? If she did, then the people doubting her story would surely realize the stupidity of their reluctance. Though, saving all of that for the article she was already making an outline of would work much better. By that point, she might even find some way of really documenting his level and race. News of system-tapping technology was always a big thing, and she could vaguely hear that there were talks of some kind of camera able to take pictures including someone’s level and race. Though, of course, these pictures are all really blurry, and - even worse - completely in monochrome.

There might even be other ways, but IOCRO was pretty secretive about these things. For most of these things, you needed to ask an actual Fighter, but even they were under contract.

She cracked her fingers. Alright, let’s stop dilly-dallying. After replying to a few stupid comments with the obvious answers anybody should know, she got to writing her daily report. Hopefully, nobody would try to convince her to “rescue” that poor woman.

Meanwhile, across the city, a last-minute dinner had been served to a pair of most interested siblings. Kreig sat down at the dinner table, his gaze blank and his cheeks slightly flushed. Sam and George gave each other a pair of sly, knowing grins.

“So?” Sam asked. “How’d it go?”

Kreig absently moved his hand to touch a spot on his cheek. “It was… Pleasant. Yes.”

George nodded at hearing it, smiling almost nostalgically in recognition of the feelings Kreig must have been experiencing. “I know how that is. It feels like you’ve got butterflies in your stomach, right? Or that you’re walking on clouds, or the world seems to shine like you’ve had too much wine…”

“It feels like someone’s watching me,” Kreig said numbly.

George made a face. “Well… Of course you do, plenty of people are following you.”

Raising her hand excitedly, Sam blurted out, “Yesterday I got to follow you!” She grinned broadly. “It was pretty boring. You should be sterner with your students!”

Kreig shook his head, wringing his hands atop the table. “Not like that. I’m well aware many of your best men ensure my safety at any time. I am most grateful for such attentions. But it feels as though it is someone else.”

Frowning, George tried to rack his brains. “Well, that’s… Does it feel more attentive than the typical escort, or is it something else?”

“I’m not sure,” Kreig said, shrugging. “All I can tell is that, whoever it is, they certainly don’t like me.”

“That opens the door to many possibilities. It could be that a new recruit simply has it out for you. If that’s the case, you really shouldn’t worry too much, since you’re immune to almost anything such a man can do.” He took a slow sip of water, collecting his thoughts. “If it’s something else, like a stalker or something, then I’m sure they can’t follow you forever. After all, the guys we’ve got following you are trained to keep their eyes on the crowd as much as on you. If they see someone suspicious, I’m sure they’ll make a report on it.” He smiled wryly. “Whatever it is, I certainly don’t think you should deal with it yourself.”

Sam nodded, making a similar expression. “Yeah, uh, leave it to us professionals! We’ll break their bones ten times over, I swear!”

“No need for anything like that,” Kreig placated lightly. “It’s not even sure it’s anything like that. For all I know, it may very well be a student who’s got their eye on me.”

George nodded at the suggestion. “If that’s the situation, it’s a whole lot more complicated. We’ll want to deter them from following you, but we also don’t want them to know the extent of our reach or your importance…” He shook his head. “If it comes down to such a situation, we’ll try to deal with it as best as we can. But there’s no reason to assume something like that. For now, let’s just stick to the idea that one of our rookies is being overzealous, alright?”

Although Kreig hardly felt any better, he agreed with it. Ever since he left Erica’s apartment he hadn’t felt the presence, so whoever it was was clearly human in some regard. Then, it should be fine, right? He had no reason to fear any human.

Falling to the pacifying words of his siblings, he put the thought of the malicious gaze out of his mind.